The claims against the 12 companies were eventually dismissed — with the case officially closed in April — but some adult companies, including one of the last litigants, Playboy, signed patent license agreements with Joao Control.

The patent holding company is owned by Yonkers, N.Y., patent attorney Raymond Joao, who owns a wide variety of patents, reportedly over 100.

The language of the No. 6,587,046 patent, at center of the latest suit, is described as:

"A monitoring apparatus and method including a processing device for receiving video information recorded by a video recording device or a camera, wherein the video recording device or a camera is located at a vehicle or a premises and the processing device is located at a location remote from the vehicle or premises.

"The processing device receives a signal transmitted from a communication device located at a location remote from the processing device and remote from the vehicle or premises. The video information is transmitted from the processing device to the communication device in response the signal. The video information is transmitted to the communication device on or over at least one of the Internet and the World Wide Web."